Boxing Day
by fanfic n00b
Summary: On a snowy day in December, the presents are unwrapped, but there are still a few surprises left. Lily and Sirius share a passion for all things Freddie Mercury, and James is nerdier than Lily thought.


In the snow, her feet left shallow bootprints which radiated improbably from the spot to which she had Apparated. With her crimson coat and a package under her arm, dawdling through an unfamiliar hamlet, she felt like Little Red Riding Hood.

But the wolves must all be asleep today, because she walked unperturbed through the little square. Fat winter birds huddled together in the trees, twittering brightly._ Oh, little carolers_, she thought, looking up at a pair of warbling finches, _you don't realize Christmas was yesterday, do you?_

She swung open a low gate and cut through a churchyard. It was eerily beautiful under the blanket of fresh snow. She recognized a few surnames on the headstones - names shared with friends from school. A few graves bore Christmas wreaths and fresh flowers. She slowed her stride, enjoying the peacefulness of this place.

Lily Evans had never been to Godric's Hollow before, and she had no clue which house was James Potter's, but she was a very good guesser. Intuitive, Professor Slughorn often said. She often worked things out using hunches and feelings, following them down rabbit holes until they proved right or reached a dead end. If she didn't have such an exhaustive study schedule for NEWTs, she probably would have spent more time reading mystery novels. Or perhaps writing them.

Lily's first guess turned out to be incorrect, but the house did belong to Bathilda Bagshot, whom Lily recognized from a bookjacket, and who very kindly pointed Lily toward the house with the red door at the end of a cul-de-sac. Lily thanked her, a little starstruck, and accepted a sparkling, sugar-topped biscuit that Bathilda had just baked.

_Charming, _Lily decided was the appropriate word to describe this village. She had not expected it. For some reason she had thought it might be a bit like the dodgy walk to Sev's - through the playground, over the fence, across the railroad tracks and the rickety bridge, and then crossing her fingers and hoping it was Sev who answered the door and not his abysmal dad. But then, she had not made that trek in nearly two years. It was probably even dodgier now, since the mill closed.

Godric's Hollow was much more like Hogsmeade than like Spinner's End. It had a fairy tale flavor that Cokeworth distinctly lacked. There were no telephone wires, no electric lights. Hardly any cars. It probably looked the same now as it had four hundred years ago.

She found the cul-de-sac and spotted the red door at the end of it. It was still mid-morning, and few inhabitants were stirring – likely hung over from Yuletide celebration. But there was a very familiar young man with messy black hair testing out a new, pristine broom in his front yard. Unaware that she was watching, he seemed less cocky, less erratic.

He was putting the broom through its paces, trying feints and falls and swift stops. He was so focused that he did not notice her approach. As he rose into the air again, fifteen feet off the ground, she drew closer until she was almost standing under him.

"Happy Christmas, Potter," she said in a low voice.

He spun around, shouted "Evans!" and promptly flew straight into a tree with a loud THWACK.

Instinctively, she fired a spell at him to break his fall. He landed, supine in the snow under the tree, and she imagined little yellow birds circling around his head comically, like in a cartoon. She ran up beside him and kneeled next to him. The snow soaked, wet, through her jeans. She took off one green mitten and felt his forehead.

"Hope I haven't given you a concussion," she said, half-smiling, half-worried. "You're supposed to trounce Ravenclaw in the next match when we get back."

"What in blazes are you doing here?" he asked.

"Nice to see you, too," she said. "_Lumos_."

She shone the light into his eyes, and his pupils reacted normally, shrinking in the glare. She ruled out concussion.

He pushed himself up on his elbows. "I'm chuffed to see you, Red, but I'd no idea you were coming," he said. "How did you even find me?"

She held out the half-eaten, glittering biscuit to him. "Did you know Bathilda Bagshot lives down that street? Lovely witch. She gave me this. I feel like Hansel. Or Gretel, rather. You know, old witch giving you sweets in a strange place. Want a bite?"

"Alright, definitely concussed. I've no idea what you're on about," he said.

"You're not," she said, replacing her mitten on her chilly fingers. "Concussed. You're fine. Well, your hair's a mess, and you've a few scratches on your face, but I'm sure you'll put that right in a minute." _You vain thing._

She finished her biscuit and looked at him thoughtfully.

"You haven't answered my question," he said.

"Ah. What in blazes I'm doing here. Right," she said. "Sorry I snuck up on you, by the way. You were so engrossed in your - what is it - Comet something?"

"Nimbus."

"That. Yeah. Sorry. Doesn't look broken, though. That's fortunate. Christmas present, was it?"

He smirked at her. "You are stalling something fierce."

She sighed and pushed a strand of auburn hair out of her eyes, sinking back on her boot-clad heels. "Potter. We're friends, aren't we?"

"Yeah. We are," he said, eyeing her with mock suspicion.

"Well,_ friend_, truth be told, I've had a miserable Christmas, and I need a bit of company. Bit of cheerful mischief. And who better than you for that?"

"That is my area," he agreed, nodding. "What was wrong with your Christmas?"

"Mmmph. Give you details later. Tell me some jokes first. Lighten my mood."

She took both of his hands and they hoisted one another to their feet. He shook snow out of his hair and rearranged his glasses on his face by scrunching up his nose.

"Alright. Have you already heard the one about the three trolls in a boat?" he asked. His eyes were dancing with laughter.

"Haven't had the pleasure," she answered.

He threaded his arm through hers and steered her toward the house.

"Nah, I can't tell you that one. It's tasteless. Come in. I'll put the kettle on. Or do you drink coffee?" he asked.

"Whichever," she said absently. She was watching their boots crunch through the snow together and thinking how comfortable it felt to walk side-by-side with him. _Comfortable_, of all things. Not _awkward_ or really even _sexy_. He led her up the front steps, one arm still looped through hers.

"Brought your present," she said, pushing her squashy green and gold parcel into his hand. "It's a scarf."

Before they had crossed the threshold, she heard loud rock music blaring from an upstairs room.

"Who's playing THAT in your house?" she asked excitedly.

"Padfoot," he said, opening the door.

"Padfoot!"

"He lives with me."

"Oh! I forgot."

"Hey – where're you-"

But she was already jogging through the sitting room and up the stairs, following the sound. "I love this song!" she said, her voice bouncing off the walls.

She burst through the door behind which the music played, singing along at the top of her voice. Sirius Black was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, apparently moping. He looked up at her and opened his mouth, first in surprise, then delight.

"Fucking brilliant, isn't it!" she yelled over the music.

James stood in the doorway and threw up his hands, baffled.

Sirius' bedroom had the hallmarks of wayward, wizard teenage boy-dom: a pile of dark, dirty laundry slumped against the door. Posters of motorcycles and scantily clad girls. Open spellbooks with abandoned cups of cold coffee sitting on them.

"Nobody - _nobody_ else I know likes good music," said Lily, yelling over the song.

"Me neither," hollered Sirius, standing up and kicking away a stray sock. "This one-" he pointed at James - "has no taste at all. He doesn't even like live music."

"Oh, surely not!" she said, disbelieving. "God, this is the best part. Oh, it kills me every time."

As the song swelled to the bridge, she sang a high harmony and Sirius sang a low one with her, and she grinned at him. He leapt up onto his desk and sang louder. She climbed up on his desk chair, belting. James made a pickle-sour face at them, sure they were both mad. Or at least insufferably batty about Muggle pop songs.

_Find me somebody too-ooh love_

_Find me somebody too-ooh love_

Sirius pulled Lily up onto the desk, and her wet boots dripped onto his school effects and letters. He threw an arm around her waist and dipped her melodramatically, like a ballroom dancer, her arms thrown back over her head, both of them still singing, though she was laughing now, too, and off-key. In this moment, she decided that she liked him vastly more than she used to. Certainly more than she had a year ago, when she could have played jerkface roulette to pick who she loathed most – Severus, Sirius, or James.

The song ended and she sneezed.

"Bollocks," she said reflexively under her breath, and she thought she heard James stifle a laugh behind her. "Have you got a dog, by chance?"

Sirius looked over her head at James. "Not exactly," he said with a sideways grin.

"I'm allergic," she said.

"Uh, let's get you back to the kitchen, where there's less, uh, dog. Dander. Fur. Whatever it is," said James, beckoning her with one callused hand.

"_Tergio_," Sirius muttered, waving his wand at his muddy desk.

Lily jumped down off the chair, narrowly avoiding a stray pack of dog-eared self-shuffling playing cards that was hopping all over the room, and followed James toward the door.

"Joining us for tea, Padfoot?" she asked.

"Might do," said Sirius.

"Nice pipes, by the way," she said, rounding the corner.

"Ta!" he called after her.

James walked close beside her through the carpeted hallway.

"Your mum and dad around?" Lily asked.

"Nah," said James. "In Cardiff. With friends."

"Oh, home alone with your best mate and a new broom," she cooed loftily. "I'm surprised your house is still standing."

"Lay off, Evans," he said, belying his own words by smiling broadly at her.

"Which one's your room?" she asked.

He stopped abruptly and turned to face her. "Are you asking if you can come in my room?"

She raised her eyebrows and bit her lip. "Yeah. S'pose I am," she said.

"If only you knew how long I've waited for you to ask," he said with unconvincing sarcasm.

"Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea," she said. "You're awfully blunt when you want something."

"This is me," he said, pushing open another door and rolling his eyes at her. "Enter."

Whatever she had been expecting, this was not it. If someone had asked her yesterday what James Potter's bedroom was like, she would have imagined red and gold hangings, Quidditch posters, broom wax, and probably a lot of stray Honeyduke's wrappers.

Instead, it was this: huge maps on every wall covered in tiny, moving dots. Half-completed, homemade inventions puffing with steam. A stack of Transfiguration books and a brown owl sleeping in a cage. There was a broom, too, leaning against one wall, but it was not the focal point. The room smelled like ink and incense.

She thought she might have said "oh," without realizing it.

"Lacks the dark glamor of Padfoot's room, I know," he said.

She tilted her head quizzically and took him in fully for maybe the first time. "You're like... kind of a boffin, aren't you?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I dunno if I'd go that far."

"My god, you_ are_. I never realized. But you wear glasses, for fuck's sake. You're a _nerd_."

"And you're a swot," he said. "And you've woken Mercutio."

The owl had opened its yellow eyes and hooted.

"Hullo, Mercutio," she said, poking her fingers through the bars to scratch the bird's feathery, sharp head.

"She's a strange witch, isn't she," James said to the owl, opening the cage. "Good-looking, but strange. Mouthy, too."

Mercutio hopped onto James' arm and allowed him to open the window for him. The owl flew into the trees behind the house, unfolding tawny wings speckled with white.

Standing by the window, spiky hair silhouetted in wintry light, with a slightly weary half-smile, James looked like someone else. Not Prongs Potter, Annoying Berk. A different creature altogether.

He sat down on the edge of his bed and peeled off his wet boots and socks. When she sat down next to him, she noticed a half-moon of dirt under one of his toenails. Somehow this struck her as intimate, significant.

"So," he said. "Your miserable Christmas. Do I get the full story yet?"

"That depends," she said, taking off her own boots.

"On what?"

"On whether you'd rather listen to me whinge, or skip straight to the part where you comfort me with your wit and charm."

His hazel eyes locked on hers for a long time, slightly narrowed in thought, and she could see every color of nature in them: gray, green, blue, brown. Shifting. Moving like water.

At last he said, very quietly, but with a warm, triumphant note, "You don't hate me anymore, do you?"

"No," she said.

"How did that happen?"

She shrugged.

"Padfoot told me to give it up. Lost cause," he said.

"But then you started being my friend a bit," she said.

He nodded. "I'm glad for that. You're good to your other friends. I could almost be happy with that alone."

"Almost?"

His face went wistful. A cocky sort of wistful. Sexy, really. "You know what I mean," he said. "I _like_ you. I _know_ you know that. I've said it loads of times."

She frowned and closed her eyes. It was so different, the way he openly acknowledged that he wanted her. He didn't hide it or try to pass it off as something else. And he was right; she had known forever. It was just one of those immutable things, like Golpalott's Third Law, or gravity, that James Potter fancied her.

"Anyway," he said, shaking his head as if shaking snow out of his hair again, "I also know you're tired of hearing me say it. And someday, with luck, I'll get over it, and we'll all laugh about it. So tell me all about your horrible Christmas."

His smile was back. Bright. Boyish. She suddenly had a plummeting feeling, as if her heart had been holding a teacup and had dropped it into her stomach.

She scooted closer to him.

"Don't," she said.

"Don't what?" he asked, smoothing down the bedspread on his other side.

"Don't get over it." She poked him in the foot with her damp, socked toe. "Give me some time to catch up to you, okay?"

He swallowed. "Yeah. Okay," he said.

He leaned tentatively against her, shoulder to shoulder.

Was the room spinning? Had hell frozen over? She could not say for sure.

Outside, snow had started falling again, and they both looked out the window, rapt. Soundlessly, a pair of red-brown deer emerged from the woods, leaving hoof prints in the snow. Lily covered her mouth with one hand, and she swore she saw James perk his ears up and sniff the air. They watched in silence as the animals passed close to the house and circled back, finally disappearing into the naked winter trees again.

She uncovered her mouth and looked hard into his face.

Who kissed who first, they never did agree upon.


End file.
